The Xandman Knoweth
by dialNforNinja
Summary: Xander gets a new groove, after coming in contact with an ancient mystical artefact dating to the burning of the Library of Alexandria. As with all of the oneshots, this too is open to adoption.


As the liquid tones of an unseen gong pealed through the library, Rupert Giles shuddered and knocked back another swig from his bottle. Dozens of ancient texts lay open on the table around him, each as useless as the last, while his three young charges Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris, and Buffy Summers lay as comfortably as he could make them on the table behind him, still as if dead.

In time with the fading of the gong, one of the glowing gems on the amulet lying in a pool of cloth before him lost its brilliant glow, meaning it had become that much more likely that death was exactly what awaited them when the accursed thing consumed them as it had countless seekers after its power in the past.

He'd found records of dozens of them; who'd fallen under its spell by accident or intent, as comrades, as servants, as sacrifices... none had survived, not even its creator, who as best the Englishman could tell had chosen it as an elaborate form of suicide.

No oracle or divination could reveal more than its name, The Key of Alexandria, and to confirm that it had indeed been enchanted by Hypatia, the last keeper of the fabled library as that city lay under siege by barbarian hordes.

Those who fell under its spell could not be contacted in any known afterlife.

No attempt to restore its victims had ever succeeded.

No known prophesy seemed to concern it.

There was nothing he could do.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, and knocked back another shot.

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><p>THE XANDMAN KNOWETH<p>

A work of BtVS fanfiction

by

ClassicDrogn (AKA dialNforNinja)

* * *

><p>Xander came to slowly at first, in that typically fuzzy manner he was getting to know all to well that meant he'd been knocked out. His wrists were sore and something cold and rough was digging into his back where he sat against it. Blinking the gum out of his eyes, he realized that was due to being chained to the stone wall of a dungeon, and he groaned as he realized he'd been captured and was likely looking forward to a prime spot on someone's menu. The big blue demon with way too many teeth standing watch with a nasty looking spear-thing from the doorway just rounded out the picture.<p>

He remembered going on patrol with Buffy and Willow okay... it was a slow night, just a couple of minions and one scaly demon that had seemed to be more into robbing the guy it had dragged into an alley than eating him, not that it made the poor shmoe's ripped out throat any less fatal. Then they'd hit the cemeteries for the usual crop of newbies.

Restview and Wakefield (and who names a cemetery 'Wakefield' anyway?) had been, well, dead, but in Sleeping Pines they'd found a gang of the suck-heads robbing a crypt. The leader had sicced his minions on the Buffster before trying to cut out, and had dodged Willow's crossbow bolt while his own hadn't penetrated far enough to dust the sucker at first. Enraged, the vampire had turned back and rushed him, some kind of necklace clutched by the chain in one hand, the other clawed and sweeping to shred his face as it came.

He'd dropped low to avoid it and gotten tangled in the vamp's legs, sending them both sprawling, but the impact as it rolled must have driven the bolt just that critical bit deeper and suddenly Xander was spitting out vampire dust, his head bounced off a tombstone, and he could feel something small land on his chest... He thought he'd reached up to brush it away, but then, nothing.

He took a second look around at the cell and adjusted his position, trying to get a little more comfortable. He paid special attention to his shackles, they were rusty enough that Buffy could probably have have snapped them and been all over the guard before it could react, but for him it would just be an invitation to scraped wrists and possible infection to try. "Ick, tetanus, needles bad," he muttered, before pasting on a smile and saying, "Love what you've done with the place, it really brings out that dank and gloomy dungeon feeling. So, would it help to ask if you'd let me out now that I've had the experience, big guy?"

The very blue, very, very, big, really extremely toothy thing laughed, a grating, booming sound that echoed in the tiny stone cell like a coffee grinder in a tin bucket. It set down its spear in the corner of the archway and leaned in, even more of its meat-eaters' teeth showing in a hideous grin, eyes dancing with amusement.

"PASS!" it suddenly shouted.

As the demon fumbled with the keychain at its belt, all Xander could do was stammer, "Uh, wha huh? What do you mean, 'Pass?' Whoa, hey, let's not get hasty! I'm full of cholesterol and empty calories, really bad for you," he continued as the thing started to unlock the chains and pull him to his feet.

Brushing aside the teenager's babble the demon pulled Xander up and steadied him until the surprise faded enough for balance to return on its own. "You are the fastest to ever pass the Trial of Wisdom," it ground out, "to simply ask without begging, bribes, threats, or violence."

Xander blinked, not quite believing his luck could possibly be that good. "Wait, you mean... all I had to do was ask? That's it, I can go?"

"Certainly, you can continue to the next Trial, if you feel you are ready," the guard replied, casually retrieving its weapon. Hearing the human's stomach rumble it added, "You could also stay for a meal, or otherwise prepare yourself." Looking back over its shoulder with another of those hideous grins, it added, "Or stay where you are, despite being freed. It makes no difference to me."

"Oh, sure, dinner with a demon, great plan there, Harris," he thought. "On the other hand, a simple question worked once, might as well try." Aloud, he asked, "So, uh, what's on the menu? Not rare Xander-steaks with eyeball sauce, I hope?"

The demon laughed again, and not very reassuringly, but replied, "Spicy skewered rabbit and cheese, and sweet golden cakes." Stepping out into the corridor it gave its weapon a theatrical spin, and grinned once more before walking off.

"Sweet golden cakes?" the boy mused. "No way, it can't be. Not even on the Hellmouth are things that weird." Still, it had been a while since dinner even before setting out on patrol, and his captor seemed to be on a Xander-free diet, so...

Shrugging, he followed the blue demon toward the more brightly lit room at the end of the otherwise unoccupied dungeon corridor, asking, "So, you got a name, or should I just keep calling you 'Big Guy?'"

As it turned out, Kagiith was in fact female, quite obviously so once she took off the guard armor, and shrank a bit into a less battle-ready form. She was also a suprisingly pleasant dinner companion once you got past the way she seemed to be able to completely strip the meat off a roasted bunny in a single pass and leave a sad little skeleton behind on the wooden skewers. Xander tried not to think of hoppy fuzzy things or what Willow would say if he told her how utterly delicious they turned out to be with a few spices and a hickory fire. "So, do you, uh, do this often? Abduct guys to see how long it takes them to ask you to turn them loose?" Running his own question back in his mind he winced at how it sounded, and quickly took another big bite to try to cover it up.

The demoness swallowed and took a sip from her drink before replying, "Not since, oh, before you'd have been born." The turn of phrase reminding her of something, she paused a moment, then continued, "It gets rather boring, in fact... at least the last one told some interesting stories before deciding to take on the next Trial. Tell me, do you know that play about the saga of Luke the Sky-Walker, and his struggle against the Star of Death?"

Xander couldn't reply for a few minutes, being too busy getting whatever kind of fruit juice it was out of his sinuses.

(00()00)

Xander had just finished relating the Hoth half of The Empire Strikes Back to his rapt audience of one when he was interrupted by a loud gong. "What was that about," he asked, "End of lunch, time to get to Chemistry?"

"Chemistry? The preparation of medicine? If the rabbit did not agree with you, I can produce remedies from my cabinet, but the gong sounds when a Trial has been failed - one of the others," she added, seeing his sudden apprehensive look. "You have passed the First, and not yet begun the Second."

"Others? What others? I didn't see anyone else in those cells, and how many trials are there, anyway?" Xander babbled, suddenly reminded that however nice she might seem his hostess was still a demon, and he still didn't really know where they were.

"Always three trials, always three to challenge them, always three gifts for the winner. Although, there's never been a winner," Kagiith replied. "You didn't know? Yet you've taken it so calmly, most of the challengers are aggressive, or for those who were unwillingly entered by another, terrified."

"Oh, well, you know, my life's kind of been of the weird all over lately, so I now reserve panic for the demons who actually want to eat me and/or end the world," he replied, trying to pass it off casually. "But, hey, what about these others, now? And what happens exactly when someone fails?"

"The trials begin when three Challengers have touched the Key, their minds drawn here to copies of their bodies. Because you were unconscious, it took a bit longer for you to awaken, so you missed the first gong. I suppose that must have been the one responsible for bringing you here, she was the last to enter and failed immediately when she broke loose and 'killed' my image in her Trial. The second has failed at the Trial of Courage, it seems, though until that image dispels I won't know the details." She smiled viciously, then, and Xander doubted after seeing that, that her 'normal' grins would set him off quite so badly... at least until he heard her next words. "You can consider yourself well avenged for that knock on the skull, the blonde one will stay in her little cell for the rest of eternity. She seemed quite upset you weren't there to be sacrificed, since all Challengers are separated."

"Wait, blonde, looking for me? Buffy! This isn't her fault, she probably came for a rescue, you gotta let her out!" Seeing the demoness's eyes narrow and remembering how things worked for him, the boy quickly rephrased, "I mean, please let my friend Buffy out of her cell...?"

Kagiith shook her head. "She has failed, and the 'me' in her chambers is gone. Even if it were allowed, I am not there to release her. Is the red-headed human girl also known to you then? She declined the second Trial, but will at least have my other self to talk to for as long as she lasts. I sense no dislike from that self, hopefully she will last a while before going mad, it's quite lonesome with only myselves and the gibbering remnants of past Challengers to talk to."

Appalled, Xander dropped the half eaten rabbit to his platter. "How can you be so incredibly callous!" he demanded. "Those are my friends, and if you hurt them..." The teen trailed off, unable to think of a threat dire enough, and after remembering the demoness's hulking combat form and the strength shown as she'd hauled him upright, unable to think of anything impressive he could actually carry out. "At lest let me see them, tell them I'm okay!"

"Callous?" Kagiith growled, "I perform the duty to which I am bound, and take what respites I can find from these millenia of isolation. Challengers exist within separate images, when a new one enters one of my selves is drawn into that new image and remains until it is destroyed there, but there is no other connection between them. Only the Master of the Archives could change any of it." The wooden mug cracked in her clenched fist, splitting with a crunch and dumping its purplish contents across the table while her golden, feline eyes glowed ominously. "Do not mistake the familiarity I've allowed for obligation or license, human! I will have an eternity to amuse myself with you in other ways if you cannot keep a civil conversation, once you fail as all others have failed. The arrogant witch who bound me is screaming still, her spells of compulsion useless on entering my world of mirrors, as she should have had the _wisdom_ to know!"

"Whoa, okay, I get it, keep the party polite!" Xander exclaimed, fluttering his hand calmingly. "I'm just, you know, worried about my friends and all." Seeing the glow subside in his captor's eyes, he continued more calmly, "So, ah, this Master of Our Chives dude, who is he? Could I talk to him, maybe, about possibly making some eensy little changes?"

"As no one has passed the three Trials, there is no Master of Archives," Kagiith explained with forced patience. "But enough of that, I am eager to hear of the taming of the Solitary Captain by his princess, and the teachings of Master Jedi Yoda."

Pushing his bench back from the table, Xander stood up from the table, his expression unusually serious. "Maybe later, Kaggy, I, ah, I think I'd better get to work on that second trial so I can save my girls."

Sighing with disappointment, the demoness quickly stacked the remains of their meal into the lower half of her cabinet, a largish, free-standing wooden affair the size of a refrigerator which she'd pulled ingredients out of the top half of to prepare the skewers and even for a few more charcoal blocks to keep the fire hot at one point. From it she then retrieved two wrapped pastries, passing one to Xander before unfolding the waxed cloth surrounding her own. Figuring these to be the promised sweet golden cakes he followed suit, momentarily distracted by the prospect of sugary goodness of a suspiciously Twinkie-like description. Though about as thick these were larger and less rounded, obviously cooked in a small square pan, and rather than filled with vanilla creme they'd had honey poured over the top and a dusting of powdered sugar to keep the stickiness under control.

All in all, delicious, he mused as he followed the blue demoness out of the food area and through another hallway, but still not as good as Twinkies.

(00()00)

Kagiith's cozy living quarters opened onto a balcony over a large training hall, its smoothly paved stone floor covered in one area by thick straw mats near the wall that was covered in all kinds of racked weapons. Their meal finished, she led him down a staircase and across that room, then through another hallway. He was starting to get a bit worried by the multiple, menacing growls he could hear from the other end as they grew closer, and prayed his Willow hadn't been turned into a Scrappy-snack...

(00()00)

(A little earlier, a step to the left)

Willow wasn't too sure about this "second trial" thing - the exit had a bunch of scary sounds coming through it, and peeking out she could see a wide corridor full of hellhounds held back by faintly shimmering force fields. The guard just grinned toothily again when asked whether the field would stay put once the person leaves the first area. Okay, sure, epic challenge, but Willow wasn't exactly the mythic hero type, was she? The redheaded high-school student eased the heavy door shut again, its mass and the difficulty of moving such a simple thing another reminder that no, she wasn't the action-girl type. At all. Better to stay put and let her super-buddy Buffy deal with the monsters like always, especially since the jailor was actually kind of nice and knew all kinds of neat stuff about demons and magic and things.

(00()00)

(And then a jump to the right)

Buffy was not at all happy to find herself trapped in a little stone cell, but at least when the doorway collapsed a crack opened in the wall so she could look out... "Wait a minute, is that XANDER! But there's like a dozen hellhounds out there, all grr and big with the slathering! He'll be killed!" Worried and frustrated, she battered at the wall with adrenaline-boosted mystical strength, but the thing just WOULD NOT break any more no matter how she punched or kicked or shoulder-checked it, all she was doing was beating herself up.

(00()00)

(Put your hands on your hips, and if you do it right...)

"This is it, my life finally, really drove me INSANE," Xander thought to himself, clutching the crossbow he'd borrowed along with a quiver of bolts and a nicely balanced sword from the training hall before heading through the heavy door to find out what was growling like that. There was a drawbridge and a short stretch of clear stone before the first barrier field, leading up at a noticeable slope away from the wall of the fortress. Looking back toward it from where he'd stopped a few feet from the barrier with the hellhound slathering at the pother side as it tried to get to him made Xander's head hurt, it was like he was looking at a few dozen of them at once, all in the same place, with the paths from the front gate fading together to be the single path it should be where that first barrier was. The cavern it was built inside was fairly large, at least, and after getting closer he'd noticed something about the barrier that gave him a slightly better idea than just charging through it and facing a bunch of demonic killing machines one after the next. Keeping one eye on the closest devil dog as he backed away, he saw that it went back to pacing around the enclosure it was held in, around and around from the close barrier, along one wall, across the one separating it from the next enclosure, and then to the front again.

Reaching the gate again, he called in to Kagiith, watching through a small, barred viewport in the door, "Would'ja mind raising the drawbridge a little, to give me some height? Or you could, you know, let me in and I'll do it, as long as that doesn't mean I fail."

"Trying the change a test of courage and skill at arms into a test of intelligence?" the blue demoness purred with a chuckle, before moving away from the window. Xander hung his head with a silently mouthed curse, but startled and turned to look as the sturdy wooden bridge rose on creaking hinges and clanking chains, until it was at nearly a 45 degree angle, where it stopped and settled back a few inches with the solid sound of an engaging pawl from the other side of the main gate. Kagiith appeared again at the window, crouching down to look out of it in her monstrous form. "Perhaps you will be a worthy Archivist," she rumbled, "but it remains to be seen if your plan will succeed."

"Plan?" he thought to himself. "What is this thing you call 'plan,' kemosabe?" Dignifying his half-terrified attempt to deal with the snarling, fang-laden hellhounds without having to risk his pasty white buttocks getting chewed off with the term 'plan' risked delusions of grinders, or however that expression went. "What the heck does thinking you're a sandwich have to do with anything, anyway,"he wondered as he carefully climbed the steep slope, using the large rivets driven through the planks to hold reinforcing iron bands in place as footholds. Once he was situated as close to the top as he dared, he loaded the crossbow, took aim, waited for the pacing hellhound to reach the part of its route near the far barrier, and fired over the open top of the nearer one.

He missed, but as soon as the bolt struck the far barrier it vanished, and the two beasts fell on each other in a snarling swirl of fangs, claws, and blood.

"Okay, that works too," Xander said, after a double take. He couldn't tell which of the demons had won, but even the winner was bleeding heavily after tearing its opponent's head off. "So, maybe I do kinda have a plan now," he observed, reloading the weapon and adjusting the aim for the barrier keeping the third hound at bay. "The challenges were designed by a senior librarian, after all. Guy had to be planning to get past 'em himself even if he didn't count on how unhappy Kagiith was gonna be about getting bound."

(00()00)

(Let's do the time warp again!)

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><p>Essentially, this is my stab at a "Xander gets a new groove" story, without leaning on the Halloween or Hyena episodes, or sending him for cross-training in another series. Granted, the pre-title scenelet could be used to power up any of the three original Scoobies depending on one's wont, and I may just post it as a challenge to see where other people take it. If anyone wants to give it a shot, feel free to lift that part whether I do so or not. Of course, the Trials would need to be altered to suit as well.<p>

The point of course is to nip that 'fray adjacent' bullticky in the bud, while at the same time I wanted to give him a non-combat enhancement, or at best something that can only be applied to combat situations in roundabout ways - hence, he becomes Super Research-Guy, with his own built-in library of arcane information fit to make Giles drool and the transferred demonic ability to comprehend all languages, spoken, written, or even real oddballs like gestural based ones, animal noises, and telepathic communication. Sure, there's stuff in there on how to fight and magic of all types, but he's practically a walking magical jamming device in terms of using spells or having them cast on himself, and has no boost in strength, speed, reflexes, or anything else along those lines, just too much and too valuable knowledge to exclude him, especially given the spotty support of the Watchers' Council when material not already in Giles' library is needed. Kagiith is also an excellent research assistant, after a few thousand years with nothing to do but reread the stuff in the library and supplement it with what she might learn from the occasional new challenger.

The goal of the last Master of Archives at the Library of Alexandria was to create a magical duplicate of them, then escape with it to preserve the knowledge from being destroyed. Too bad for him Kagiith chose to make the first Trial just a leeetle bit tougher for the human who summoned and enslaved her to the task, leaving her trapped when her body in the real world was killed in the burning library.

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and characters therefrom are the property of Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon.


End file.
